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Class EL^_ 



Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



DESTRUCTION 

OF 

CERVERA'S FLEET 



Sunday, July 3, /8g8 



/ 

By AMOS HODGDON THOMPSON. 



Neither ancient nor modem history affords 
a parallel in the completeness of the event 
and the marvelous disproportion of casualties. 

President McKinley. 



1898. 

FRED H. SMITH, Publisher, 
East Orange, N. T. 



25306 

.s 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




Rear- Admiral WILLIAM T. SAMPSON, and the gallant 
officers and men under his command, whose- readi- 
ness, skill and efficiency in the hour of duty have 
added imperishable lustre to the history of the 
American Navy, and whose generous sympathy and 
brotherly aid extended to the vanquished have given 
to the world a notable example of humane and 
christian manhood, this little story is gratefully 
dedicated. 



IOWA 



SANTIAGO BAY 



Permission of Collier's Weekly. 



N Santiago's tented hills, 

The Sabbath dawned serene ; 

And Silence hung her veil of peace 
Above the warlike scene. 



And softly lay the summer air 

On wooded hill and sea, 
As when the Saviour stilled the storm 

On wave-tossed Galilee. 



Within the hills, beleaguerred close 

The ancient city lay ; 
And grimly near Cevera's fleet 

Blockaded in the bay. 

And calm as nature, on that morn 
For miles along the shore, 

Her ceaseless task of vigilance 
The fleet of Sampson bore. 

And like a silent song, the ships 

Puissant rose and fell, 
In cadence slow and solemn, as 

The rhythmic ocean's swell. 



MORRO CASTLE. 



But, Ah ! what swift transitions come, 

In nature and in man ! 
Behind the hill where Morro stands 

The watchful sailors scan 



A cloud, — a tiny cloud of smoke 
Quick swelling black and high, 

From which shall burst a deadlier storm 
Than wrecks the summer sky. 



Up runs the signal of escape ; 

The bells to quarters sound ; 
"Full steam ahead," to the engineers, 

And the great ships forward bound. 

They leap the waves like ocean hounds ; 

Like arrows they cleave the air, 
And straight to greet the enemy's fleet 

Their valiant crews they bear. 

Now round the harbor's headland, comes 

The flagship of the foe ; 
Her throbbing funnels belching smoke, 

While leaps a lurid glow 



Of lightning from her prow, and speeds 

A shell with fiery breath, 
To herald battle's bloody wage 

For Victory — or Death. 

Then burst the storm of war, from ship 

And fort and castle gun, 
While steaming from the harbor, came 

The doomed fleet one by one. 

Beyond Socapa's danger point, 

Down go the helms a-port ; 
And westward scuds the flying fleet 

Beneath the shielding fort. 



From stem to stern, with flashing guns 

Her port-sicles gleam and roar ; 
And peals a deafening thunder, from 

The forts along the shore. 

But undismayed, and undelayed 

Pressed on the Yankee fleet ; 
And her shot and shell on the enemy fell 

Like a storm of fiery sleet. 

The first to feel, in the stifling storm, 

The danger of being great, 
Were the boats of fame, with an unearned name, 

The Pluton and her mate. 



But, perhaps, if we knew how deadly true 

Was the Yankee gunners' aim, 
And the force of the blow, that sent them below, 

They have fairly won their fame. 



For the Oregon passed, like a cyclone blast, 

And fierce as a prairie fire, 
The flood of flame from the Texas came, 

And blent with the Iowa's ire 




TEXAS 



E. Mueller, Brooklyn. 



WRECK OF THE MAINE, Permission of Collier's Weekly . 

And there in the dash and shock and crash 

Of Wainwright's iron rain, 
As under the guns of Morro he runs, 

Invisible battled the Maine. 




GLOUCESTER. 



E. Mueller, Brooklyn* 



But westward grows a fiercer strife, 
With deeds that could only be told, 

If the beams of light were pens to write, 
As the tragic scenes unfold. 

The Spanish cruisers press their flight 

Along the Cuban shore ; 
And fast from thunder-shaken decks, 

Their Parthian volleys pour. 

But vain are guns, and armored ships 

Without the hand of skill ; 
Though thoughts of home and native land 

Inspire the patriots' will. 



In vain Cervera cheers his men 
With deeds of ancient fame ; 

In vain he calls for valor, 

With charmed *Lepanto , s name. 

His vessel's side is rent and torn, 
His decks are strewn with death ; 

And fast around him hostile flames 
Mount up with fiery breath. 

Enough ! the great commander cries ; 

Dear Spain can ask no more ; 
And down, with tears, he hauls the flag 

And turns his prow to shore. 



* Spain's famous victory over the Turks near the Bay 
Lepanto, October 7, 1571. 



Oquendo, following close behind, 

Now seeks the nearest land ; 
And burning like a furnace, lies 

A wreck upon the strand. 

And, now, the eddying storm has caught 

Viscaya in her path, 
And her mailed sides, from bow to stern, 

Are torn in its swirling wrath. 

The shot on her steel, like trip-hammers beat ; 

Through her ports, like sleet it flew ; 
And her plates were as lead to the shells that s 

With resistless death to her crew. 



Viscaya, — poor Viscaya, 

Eulate's loye and pride, 
With reeking deck and mangled form, 

Now labors on the tide. 

The sea shall sweep her shell-swept decks ; 

Her battle days are o'er ; 
And the sands, that feel her grating keel, 

Shall fold her forevermore. 

She struck' where the sands lie soft and white 

On Aserraderos' shore ; 
But her quivering prow was wrapt in smoke, 

And rent with a deafening roar. 



VISC AY A. Permission of Collier's Weekly. 

Away to the west in a cloud of smoke 

The trembling Colon flies ; 
The eye of her pilot fixed on the cape 

Where the goal of her safety lies. 



Her plunging prow is white with spray 

Her engines throbbing loud ; 
But her eager captain's call is, Steam ! 

And on the steam they crowd. 



Faster, — and faster she speeds away — 

The hopes of the captain rise ! 
But his face grows pale, as- he seaward look 

Where the matchless Brooklyn flies 




BROOKLYN E Mueller, Brooklyn 

With beak to beak, in the race for life, 

A desperate hour they run, — 
When over the bows of the Colon, shrieks 

A shell from the Oregon. 



OREGON E. Mueller, Brooklyn 

Alarmed at the Brooklyn's dashing speed, 

And dreading the Oregon's guns, 
The Colon ports her hopeless helm, 

And away for the beach she runs. 

On Tarquin's rugged shore she lies, 

The wreck of beauty and pride ; 
The sport of the flowing billows, 

The scorn of the ebbing tide. 



TARQUIN MOUNTAINS AND THE COLON 

Copyright by J, C. Hammett, New York 



And above her, in silent majesty, 
The mountain looks on the main ; 

The image of America, 

Above the vanquished Spain. 



Let freedom shout from all her hills 
For the gallant victory won ! 

Let all her bells of gladness ring 
The praise of duty done ! 

For duty was there in every blow ; 

In every cannon's peal ; 
In the valor, and skill and invincible will 

From conning tower to keel. 

No cruel pride excites the joy 

The sons of Freedom feel ; 
They glory in the strength and skill, 

That work for human weal. 



! 



In the battle's stern heroic deeds, 

And the mercy of the brave ; 

Where the victor, tender as woman, turns, 

The life of his foe to save. 



They know that the path to highest good, 

Still lies, as erst it lay, 
Along the steeps of sacrifice, 

A stern, but sacred way. 

Though souls of peace enamored shrink 

To tread the battle's path, 
The chosen sons of God must heed 

The call of righteous wrath. 



On every breeze from Cuba's isle, 

We heard her children cry, 
From the wrong of years, with bitter tears, 

And we could not see them die. 



And the God of Battles moved our hosts, 
And armed them with his might ; 

And round them threw his panoply 
To guard them in the fight. 

O, happy nation ! if thy faith 

Shall see His guiding hand ; 
And keep his will entempled 

Within thy favored land, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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